Rag-Tag Baddies

Chapter 2: Hug At Your Own Risk

Bzzzzzzt

"Damn, I really thought this one would be it."

"Can we open a window? This smell reminds me of my dad's attempts at barbecuing"

"We're underground. I have no windows."

"Sorry, I got a bit excited that time."

Xanthe peeled herself of the ground and cracked her neck. Burns of all degrees were slowly disappearing from her face, and likely the rest of her skin too. She took off her helmet, screwed off the left horn, and took out her experimental shield generator.

"Just needs a bit of extra tinkering... Or maybe..."

She blew on the metallic cartridge, wiped some spittle off and shoved it back in the horn.

"Alright, try again"

Nandi excitedly rushed over and took her hand. Sparks flew, there was a bright blue flash, and some of the industrial lights in the ceiling flickered, but Xanthe stayed upright. Nandi's eyes widened and a huge smile cleft her face in half. She ecstatically rushed in and tackle-hugged Xanthe. Immediately, a second, much brighter flash blast Flake and Girly across the room. Girly tucked and rolled, and got up elegantly, not bothered by her giant, frilly dress in the slightest. Flake, however, crashed right into a bookcase, causing several dozen books to fall on him.

"If any of those books are damaged, I will boil your bones into glue." Girly said, with a giant smile,

Flake hastily got up and started stacking the books on top of one of the metallic desks scattered throughout the giant bunker.

In the middle of the bunker, Xanthe was still standing, and Nandi had nervously retreated behind a pillar, her face slowly turning bright red with embarrassment. The lights had blown up in a large circle around Xanthe, and she was standing in the shade, surrounded by broken glass. She cleared her throat, brushed some glass shards off of her and plucked one out of her nose that had firmly lodged itself in her skin, before jumping up in the air and performing a magnificent fist pump that would have made Freddie Mercury proud.

"WHOOO! Hell yeah! I told you I'd get it to work!"

"Yes you did, but maybe still be a bit careful indoors.  I quite liked those lights." Girly said, casually walking through the broken glass. She stopped below one of the seemingly broken lights, looked up, and noticed it was still intact. With a determined look, she pointed her palms at the ground on both sides of her body, and flames erupted from her hands, propelling her upwards like the world's best dressed rocket. She hung from an electrical wire that ran across the ceiling, and was apparently fastened with titanium or something, because it didn't even look  close to bending under her weight. She reached out and lightly tapped the light. It immediately sprang to life under her finger and, satisfied, she let herself drop down to the floor. Instead of dropping like a brick, though, her giant dress acted like a frilly parachute, and she softly glided back down.

Nandi was staring at Girly with her mouth wide open from behind her pillar, and Flake opened a button on his jacket and fanned some air at where his face supposedly would be.

There was a whirring noise, and in the darker back part of the bunker, on the briefing table, Xanthe's robot orb rolled over. From the top of the orb, a steel rod telescoped out, which unfolded into rotor blades. It silently zipped into the air and over to Girly, where it began furiously scanning her from all sides with a suspicious laser beam.

"Oh hey, I guess that feature works too! Last time I tried to test its flight it basically chopped me up into cat food." Xanthe said.

"And you left that active?" Flake said, though muffled, since he'd encased himself in a kind of ice cube.

"I mean, I sort of guessed that I'd fixed the issue, but I got distracted before I could test it... What are you doing anyway?"

Flake sighed deeply and mumbled something incoherent.

Nandi frowned. "What did he say?"

"I'M SENSITIVE TO HEAT, OKAY?" Flake snapped from behind his icy walls.

Girly raised an eyebrow. "Then why do you wear that warm trench coat?"

"It has an in-built cooling system and insulation." He flipped his hair in a mixture of flamboyancy and annoyance. "The things I do for fashion..."

"Is that why you didn't fry like Xanthe?" Nandi asked curiously.

"No, I uhhh... I actually found these gloves in a construction store. They're made for electricians, but I liked the way they looked. Also, I don't conduct electricity very well, being kinda frozen and stuff."

 He made the ice cube melt into a puddle and rejoined the others.

"Whoa." Nandi said. She walked over to Flake, subconsciously sneaking in an odd, quick way that made next to no sound on the broken glass. Before he could object, she stood up on her tippy toes and booped Flake on the nose. There was a light flash, but nothing close to what had happened to Xanthe.

She immediately pulled her hand back and waved it around. "Ah! Cold!"

 "Flake gripped his nose and let out a high-pitched squeak.

"OW! I didn't say I had no nerves! Jesus..."

"Well this is hardly fair." Xanthe grumbled. "Do you have any secret electricity resisting powers I should know about?" She said, glaring at Girly.

"I don't think so, no." Girly replied.

"Good, at least I'm not the only one."

Girly looked around her messed up bunker, with broken and molten glass, water and books all over her floor, and took a deep breath. "I think we should call it a day. I have some cleaning to do."

Xanthe shrugged. "Fine with me! Same time next week?"

Flake cleared his throat. "Actually uhm... could we move it to Saturday?"

Xanthe looked at him with a questioning look.

"I don't want to miss Doctor Who two weeks in a row."

"I'll communicate the date and time to you all. Good night!" Girly said with a broad smile. Just as she said that, the remaining lights turned off, and Flake, Nandi and Xanthe slumped to the ground.